Any "Courage The Cowardly Dog" fans?
As a kid growing up in the 90's I used to watch cartoons all the time (that was definitely the decade when entertainment for kids was actually good unlike now) and even though I've pretty much quit watching cartoons I still love seeing reruns of Courage The Cowardly Dog. I watch the episodes on Netflix a lot when I'm bored and I own the third season on DVD and I'm hoping one day to get seasons 1, 2, and 4 on DVD too.
I personally feel like this was one of the greatest cartoons ever made. Unlike most shows that last longer than they should and end up getting boring and stupid towards the end (like Dexter's Lab, The Powerpuff Girls, The Simpsons, and SpongeBob Squarepants) this show only lasted 4 seasons and it stayed good right up until the last episode without ever changing anything about the show. What I loved about this show was how it had a lot of dark humor but it was never mean-spirited like the show Invader Zim was (I personally don't get why people liked that cartoon so much it had a lot of very cruel and sadistic humor). Courage The Cowardly Dog reminded me of the early 90's Addams Family movies and I loved how a lot of the episodes were like parodies and tributes to classic horror movies like Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, and The Exorcist. Plus the characters were all amusing and likable including the grumpy old farmer Eustace I mean he had some of the funniest lines.
Anyways Courage is probably one of my favorite shows of all time along with The Golden Girls and I was wondering if there were any other fans of this cartoon?
I really loved a lot of those episodes, I've always had an affinity for 'spooky' cartoons, they always unsettled and entranced me as a child and still do, RETURN THE SLABBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB mummified moron is my home boy
They just reside in the middle of some screwed up void and Courage gets absolutely zero help from his owners, the helplessness used to chew away at me some days when I thought about it too deeply.
Haha yeah I agree some of the episodes did get spooky at times but others were actually very touchy and seemed like they were trying to give a positive message to people
Plus as a fan of old school horror movies I could appreciate all the episodes that referenced stories that I was familiar with. Like "A Night at the Katz Motel" was an obvious reference to the Bates Motel from "Psycho", "Freaky Fred" and "Heads of Beef" were both references to "Sweeney Todd", "Everybody Wants To Direct" was a reference to "Night of the Living Dead" (zombie movie directors trying to attack a farmhouse lol), "Demon In The Mattress" was an obvious reference to "The Exorcist", "1000 Years Of Courage" was a great parody of "Planet of the Apes", and so on and so forth.
Plus the setting was perfect for horror movie parodies because it was in a farmhouse in a town literally called "Nowhere" and it seems like 90% of horror movies back in the day were always set in a small rural town in the middle of nowhere (usually in an abandoned building like a farmhouse). Plus the setting was all very pre-Great Depression era (combined with a few modern things from the 90's like internet computers) and I feel like Muriel and Eustace were most likely a parody of the old farming couple on the dying farm from the painting "American Gothic". There was even an episode about famous paintings around the world coming to life in an art museum and it actually featured this painting just to confirm that lol.
I don't remember most of the episodes, but I do remember watching this show when I was 10, and again when I was 13, when it happened to be on the TV. It didn't give me nightmares...it made me unable to sleep in the first place X) But even if it did scare me, I still liked it X)
Courage the Cowardly Dog was always one of my favorite cartoons, and no one else in my family can understand why I like it. I have always liked the surrealism, and even now the art style of the show continues to stand out. By all accounts it should have given me nightmares (I was four or five when it first came on) and I have never been a fan of horror, but with all honesty it might be more the type of horror that it falls in. Courage always seemed to be more of the psychological kind, which I can handle much more easily than other types of horror. The art style may have helped too. I also have always had a kinda dark sense of humor too, so that might have helped.
And because I feel obligated to, enjoy having this in your head:
_________________
My Aspie score: 163 of 200
My NT score: 45 of 200
I am very likely neurodiverse.
Haha yeah I agree some of the episodes did get spooky at times but others were actually very touchy and seemed like they were trying to give a positive message to people
Plus as a fan of old school horror movies I could appreciate all the episodes that referenced stories that I was familiar with. Like "A Night at the Katz Motel" was an obvious reference to the Bates Motel from "Psycho", "Freaky Fred" and "Heads of Beef" were both references to "Sweeney Todd", "Everybody Wants To Direct" was a reference to "Night of the Living Dead" (zombie movie directors trying to attack a farmhouse lol), "Demon In The Mattress" was an obvious reference to "The Exorcist", "1000 Years Of Courage" was a great parody of "Planet of the Apes", and so on and so forth.
Plus the setting was perfect for horror movie parodies because it was in a farmhouse in a town literally called "Nowhere" and it seems like 90% of horror movies back in the day were always set in a small rural town in the middle of nowhere (usually in an abandoned building like a farmhouse). Plus the setting was all very pre-Great Depression era (combined with a few modern things from the 90's like internet computers) and I feel like Muriel and Eustace were most likely a parody of the old farming couple on the dying farm from the painting "American Gothic". There was even an episode about famous paintings around the world coming to life in an art museum and it actually featured this painting just to confirm that lol.
Some great analysis there, I do actually know of that painting and am a horror nut so I seem to flock toward creepy-lite stuff ie things directed at younger audiences but having enough tentacles of unease thrilling through to sink deeper when you stew on it more or reference the darker shades that are just beneath the presented surfaces no matter how colourfully they dress it up. How alone the poor mutt is always upset me profoundly, he has a lot of ability to pull through each episode but his life is just an endless stream of phantom shrieking misery lol, I suppose the 'days' we aren't shown are just chilled out tumbleweed kinda drifting days and he is recovering... maybe he is actually dreaming away on a boring, banal but blissfully uneventful homestead or something and we're just an audience to his gnarly nightmares...
